2 Answers
2

The general approach for performing this kind of disaggregation is through dasymetric mapping, which uses ancillary data to inform the spatial distribution of a phenomenon, and is often used for population analyses, such as this one in San Francisco. This paper provides good background on the technique, and if you're working in ArcGIS, scripts have been developed to assist in creating the maps. Unfortunately, there isn't much built-in support for the approach in other packages, though it isn't too difficult to do manually with reclassification.

+1 good answer. It looks like this method works for vector or raster.
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Kirk KuykendallJul 27 '10 at 17:30

@dassouki, om_henners: I've updated the link for the paper to the PDF itself, from the author's site.
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scwJul 27 '10 at 17:40

@scw - Thanks for providing the second link. On a side note, have you ever used this method, and what's your experience with it?
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dassoukiJul 27 '10 at 17:43

@dassouki: We used this method to disaggregate fertilizer and pesticide loads from FAO statistics onto croplands based on a land-cover classification raster for the entire globe, as part of a marine threats analysis.
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scwJul 28 '10 at 8:17